Home
by TB's LMC
Summary: It started out with a typical Hawaiian downpour and a need for Danny to find his umbrella. It ended with Home. A snapshot of Danny's morning with a wee bit of bromance thrown in.


_Summary: It started out with a typical Hawaiian downpour and a need for Danny to find his umbrella. It ended with Home._

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**HOME**

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It's yet another one of those days where you wake up to bright, obnoxious sunshine and before you even get through your ten-minute shower, the five minutes it takes for you to shave, the next five minutes it takes for you to slick your hair back and the final ten minutes of putting on your clothes, shoes, badge and gun, Hawaiian skies decide to let loose a deluge that's sure to have the perfectly-coiffed 'do on your head completely wrecked in a nanosecond.

Danny sighs as he stands in the open doorway of his new-ish apartment. He's only been here just under two weeks and everyone really likes it, most especially his daughter – which is whose opinion matters most, of course.

The location of his parking space means he'll only be about thirty seconds in the downpour at most if he just makes a dash for the Camaro. He does have an umbrella…somewhere…and really could give a shit if Steve tells him real Hawaiians don't use umbrellas. He's not a "real Hawaiian," after all. Only thing is it's packed up in one of the boxes Danny hasn't yet managed to get to. Because in the two weeks he's been here, he had forty-eight hours free and he spent that with his Grace rather than unpacking.

The last thirteen days had been a bitch at work with a case that had the entire team island-hopping to the point where Danny's pretty sure he's earned enough frequent flier miles for a free ticket to Timbuktu.

He sighs again as he realizes this doesn't look like one of the flash rainstorms that'll ease up in a few minutes, but rather like one that's going to stick around for a while. Maybe he'd better dig through the last four boxes and see if the little black umbrella is anywhere to be found because otherwise he'll endure seriously unnecessary ribbing from his teammates when he strides into HQ with waves of hair so thick they border on curls.

How embarrassing his hair can be.

He doesn't bother to shut his door; nothing ever happens on this little dead-end street, his two closest apartment-dwelling neighbors had assured him. Besides, if anyone really wants to be out in the rain long enough to just happen to enter his apartment uninvited, well, it serves them right to get soaked to the bone just to face an armed cop.

He scoots back to his bedroom and uses his keys to slice open the first box in the pile over in the corner next to his (oh, my God, I have a real) dresser. He smiles when he sees it's full of children's books and DVDs. Some of Grace's all-time favorites are in here. Even though she's too old for at least half of the titles now, she's forbidden him from giving them away because they mean something to her.

Danny knows it's the fact the _he_ bought them for her and that _he_ reads the books to her at night, and _he _watches the movies with her over and over again that touches her so deeply. He knows this because it touches him that way just as much.

He hefts that box across the hall to the smaller room that is all Gracie's own when she comes to stay. He figures she'll enjoy going through it and putting the books away on the bookshelf he hasn't quite found the time to buy for her yet.

He can still hear the rain beating down hard outside, so he goes back into his own room and tackles the second box. The first things in this one are all the commendations he received back on the force in Jersey. Newspaper clippings about his cases preserved just-so in scrapbooks by Rachel before their marriage went all to hell. Certificates, medals, awards.

He'd been a good cop out there, from the moment he graduated the Academy to his last day when the entire precinct he operated out of had thrown him a good-bye party that left him hung over for his first three days in Hawaii.

He doesn't have a place to safely store these items yet, so he places them on his nice, big bed and looks back inside the box. There are two photo albums he knows contains family photos beginning at the time of his birth and going all the way through to his high school graduation and the first photos of him in a police uniform.

He won't look at those now; it isn't the time for trips down memory lane. He adds those to the stuff on the bed. The next layer is both the Newark and Honolulu police regs (the latter of which he is still unsuccessful at getting his friggin' partner to read, by the way). Those go on the bed, too.

Lining the very bottom of the box are loose photos and he scoops them up, curious as to what they are. At first he thinks maybe they'd come out of the photo albums, but when he turns the first one over he realizes they aren't from New Jersey in any way, shape or form.

The first one is of Kamekona sporting the goofiest face in existence. Danny remembers it'd been taken at his shave ice stand after Grace had not-so-gently given him her opinion of his newest flavor (she was his official taste-tester, of course) which he called Coconut Soufflé. Grace was insisting that eggs and coconut were an abomination – Danny was so proud of her using that word – and then proceeded to explain to him exactly why you did not do such a thing to a dessert.

Danny had laughed his ass off.

He places that photo on the bed as he seats himself on the edge of it and turns the next photo over. It's of Kono catching a wave with Steve right behind her. She was looking over her shoulder just _daring _ him to drop her, and he was grinning like the insane man he was. Danny remembered being perfectly content that day to just wade into the water and swim since there was no way in _hell_ he was even attempting to surf on waves _that_ big.

The Steve and Kono Show had become the biggest dicking contest on the beach that day. In the end the other surfers and beach-goers had declared it a draw between the two. To this day, Kono is forever trying to challenge McGarrett to a rematch. So far, the boss has declined. Danny secretly believes it's because he's afraid Kono might actually out-surf him.

He adds that photo to the pile of stuff on the bed.

There are several photos of various of their _ohana_ on Chin and Malia's wedding day. Everything from Malia smearing cake all over Chin's nose and mouth to their first dance together as husband and wife. From Steve looking more than just a little drunk to Danny looking undoubtedly beyond pissed, as Rachel used to say…he always admonished her for using 'pissed' to describe 'drunk' simply because to Americans pissed meant something else entirely. But she'd insisted and he'd picked it up…and at that wedding reception it had made a very pissed Steve giggle like nobody's business.

Oh, how Danny wishes he'd recorded that for blackmail purposes.

There is one more photo. He turns this one over and frowns, not remembering having seen it before. Out behind the McGarrett house, Steve was standing up to his belly button in the water. Grace was floating in front of him with Steve using his fingertips to gently help steady her as he taught her to become as buoyant as a life preserver. Danny well remembers his partner helping her perfect it only five months after they _became_ partners. He just doesn't remember anyone taking the photo.

Then he looks off to the right and realizes that wasn't all that was in the picture. There he is standing barefooted on the water's edge just barely inside the frame. He was wearing his work clothes so he must've just come from picking her up from school on a Friday. He was watching his partner and his daughter and wearing what he recognizes as a peaceful, happy look. It's something he isn't used to seeing on his own face – at least, not since the divorce.

Now, Danny doesn't recall every single solitary detail of every single thing he's ever done – with or without Grace – but he can't for the life of him figure out who'd taken the picture, because he doesn't remember anyone else being there for any of the Steve-and-Grace water lessons.

"I like that one," a quiet voice says from less than a foot to his right. It makes him jump and as soon as he sees the voice's owner he narrowed his eyes.

"Goddamn ninja," he growls.

Steve grins and holds out his hand. Danny passes the photo to him. "She learned really fast. She floats better than I do, now."

Danny rises to his feet. "That's because you're gargantuan and she's a petite little girl," he replies. He steps closer to check the photo out alongside Steve. "Who took that?" he asks.

"I don't know, actually. I found two copies of it on my desk at HQ a couple weeks after so I figured it must've been Kono or Chin. I slid one into one of the boxes at your first apartment and have the other at home."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"Well, I figured you would find it once you'd unpacked. Which you never did, and," he says, eyeing the boxes in the corner of the bedroom, "apparently still haven't." Steve hands the photo back to him. "Still planning on cutting and running first chance you get, huh?"

Danny takes the photo, looks up at Steve's face – which he is carefully schooling into being blank – and looks back down at the photo. He smiles as he places it on top of his five-drawer dresser. "No. This is Grace's home now. I don't think she's going anywhere. At least, not 'til she graduates."

Steve is right _there_ when Danny turns back around, forcing him to crane his neck back so he can see his face. "And what about you?" Steve asks him. "You ever going to consider Oahu home?"

Danny steps back, looks down at the boxes still sitting in the corner. Looks at the piles of stuff on his bed. Looks back up at his partner. Smiles. "Think the boss'll care if we're late?"

The corner of Steve's mouth quirks up. "Got a good excuse?"

"Yeah," Danny says as he leans down and picks one of the boxes up. He turns and places it on the bed. "I need help finishing my unpacking."

Steve just stares at him for a moment, then a wide smile breaks out on his face. Makes him look like a teenager, Danny swears. Steve whips out his jackknife, flips open the blade and slices neatly through the tape holding the box closed.

"You are a very scary and dangerous man, McGarrett, do you know this?" Danny asks, clucking his tongue as Steve turns and does the same thing to the one box left on the floor.

"You wouldn't want me any other way, Danno," he says with a wink as he pockets the knife and brings the other box to the bed.

_Huh_, Danny thinks. _Home._

Downpours, freaky ninja partners, umbrellas and all.

He's surprised to find that he doesn't mind the thought one bit.

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**SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION ALERT!**

It's coming out MAY 7TH at midnight, everyone - that's _this_ Tuesday! What am I talking about? The second book in my "Takers" series...my original novels about a _new_ kind of vampire! "Takers II: Family" will be hitting Amazon and Smashwords MONDAY MAY 7TH by midnight, so if you haven't checked out the first book yet, search either of those sites for Takers Chris Davis and download the first one to catch up before the second one hits the e-stores! You can also find out more on my blog about my original fiction and screenplays at authorcdavis DOT com.

Thank you for reading my _Hawaii Five-0_ fanfic!


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